Breakdown

Tag: girlscouts

As part of my prerequisites for my bariatric surgery, I had to have a psychiatric evaluation. I must do this, along with six months of physician-directed diet and exercise. Six months. Jesus, what’s going to happen in six months? I’ve spent 25 years being the fattest person in the room. Trust me when I say that there is nothing a doctor knows about diet and exercise that I didn’t already know by age 8. I knew the fat grams in a Chips Ahoy cookie before I could tie my own shoes.

Talking to the psychiatrist, she asked me what my first fat memory was. I thought for a moment, and said “second grade.” It was in second grade that I joined the Brownies. I was so excited to go the meetings with my friends and do all the fun things that a group called the Brownies must surely do. Hey, maybe they sat around and ate, gasp, brownies all day. Now that’s an organization I could put my weight behind.

It was all good until it came time to order uniforms. I was only slightly overweight, but none of the uniforms came in my size. I was devastated. There were no husky sizes to be found. I mean, why be a Brownie if you couldn’t wear the brown jumper? untitledmother took matters into her own hands and sewed me a Brownie uniform out of thick brown corduroy. It was most obviously not standard issue. The only thing more embarassing than that brown abomination was when I split my pants in gym class while playing “Clean Up Your Own Backyard.”

Looking back on this scenario, it just pisses me off. How fucked up is it that an organization designed to boost the self-confidence of young girls was directly responsible for ruining mine? Thinking about this got me all worked up, so I went to www.girlscouts.org to check out their current offerings. Low and behold, they now carry plus sizes for the kids and adults. God blessit. As untitledhusband so keenly noted, “it’s the least they can do, considering their organization freely peddles fat and calories door-to-door in every town in America.”